Catch Me When I Fall

by Vicki Leigh

  There were Nightmares everywhere, waiting to strike, like soldiers preparing to battle. I’d never seen anything like this in my two hundred years. We’d be lucky to all get out of here alive.

  Samantha, Seth and Tabbi watched my face for a sign of what to do. I jumped through the options in my head. But only one of them seemed safe.

  “Tabbi, go ahead of us and let Bartholomew know we’re coming. Seth, Samantha, I want you to follow me into the house right now. We need to get Kayla to Rome.”

  ayla leapt off the piano bench when I re-entered the room with Samantha and Seth behind me. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re leaving,” I replied.

  “What do you mean ‘we’re leaving?’”

  “I need you to trust me. Go upstairs and pack whatever you need, but we need to leave now.”

  “Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

  Scaring her was not my intent, but I didn’t know what else to do. She had to stay safe. I grabbed her hand. “Kayla—”

  She snatched her hand out of my grasp. “No, don’t ‘Kayla’ me. I want to know what’s going on!”

  I snapped, more out of fear for her than anger, and pointed to the front door. “There are Nightmares floating around your house right now, waiting to strike the moment you close your eyes. If I don’t get you somewhere safe, we won’t be able to stop them all. We will get hurt, and you will have the worst night of your life. I can’t let that happen. So, either you go upstairs right now and pack, or I will take you to Rome without your things.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, but she stormed out of the room before any of them had a chance to fall. I sighed and scolded myself, then followed her up the stairs. When I entered her bedroom, she was tossing clothes into a suitcase. Her cheeks were streaked with tears.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean for that to come off so harsh.”

  She ignored me and piled books and art supplies into her suitcase.

  I walked over to her and grabbed her arm. “Kayla, look at me.”

  She turned and slapped me across the face. I grunted at the impact and the stinging pain that lingered.

  “I’m not a child, Daniel.”

  Before I had a chance to respond, a loud bang sounded from downstairs. Then Samantha yelled, “Daniel! Get out of here, now!”

  Kayla looked at me, her eyes wide with fear. I grabbed her hand, planning to evaporate, but before I had a chance, I was slammed from behind. My body ricocheted off the wall, and I yelped when I landed on my injured arm.

  “Daniel!” Kayla yelled.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her running for me, but I pointed to the bed. She needed to hide herself from the crossfire. “Get under your bed!” I jumped up from the floor, ready to fight. My arm throbbed, but I couldn’t stop for a second.

  When I turned around, a Nightmare stood in the middle of the room, facing Kayla and blocking her way to the bed. I leapt at the beast, grabbing its arm and jerking back. We fell to the ground, my knees in its spine. The Nightmare screeched when I yanked its shoulder out of its socket. Kayla, seeing her opening, ran for cover.

  Reaching to my waist to grab my dagger, I swore under my breath when I remembered I hadn’t slipped on my weapon belt after waking up in Rome. With no other choice, I wrapped my injured arm around the hellion’s neck and leaned back with my knees planted firmly under its shoulder blades. The Nightmare’s body thrashed under me as I crushed its windpipe, and when the hellion finally died, I took a deep breath. The pain in my arm was agonizing.

  Then Kayla’s piercing scream shook me to my core.

  I flipped my head around to see her ripped out from under the bed by another Nightmare. The beast dug its claws into her ankle, leaving behind a smear of blood as it dragged her across the floor. My heart stopped in my chest. Never before had a Nightmare approached a conscious human, let alone attacked one. This wasn’t right, wasn’t natural. Something—or someone—had to be controlling them, forcing them to do more than feed off people’s fears.

  I panicked momentarily, uncertain how to get the monster off Kayla without hurting her, then snapped into action. If I didn’t do something now, she would slip through my fingers. My heart pounded in my chest, and I jumped off the dead Nightmare. “Stop fighting or you’ll bleed out,” I warned Kayla.

  She stopped squirming and covered her face with her hands, sobs shaking her body. On Kayla’s bed, from when I had emptied her desk, was a heavy, metal award. The same one she’d tried to use on Matt. I sprinted to the bed, grabbed the statue and swung.

  The medal’s stone platform smacked the beast in the side of its chin. The Nightmare let go of Kayla, its claws slicing deep gashes into her ankle, and fell backward. Kayla screamed as blood poured out of her body. Shit.

  I didn’t have time to kill the Nightmare. I dropped to my knees, digging my arms under Kayla, and evaporated us to Rome.

  We landed with a thud in Bartholomew’s office. He and Tabbi ran to us, Kayla in my arms as I knelt on the floor. I moved my arm out from under her knees to brush the hair off her face.

  “I got you. You’re going to be okay.” The words were as much for my benefit as for hers. She shook her head and cried out in pain.

  Tabbi dropped to her knees and placed Kayla’s foot in her lap. She slid up the leg of Kayla’s pajamas to expose the wound and gagged. My jaw clenched. The Nightmare had cut clean through to the bone. Her artery was severed.

  “Daniel, I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I should’ve listened,” Kayla said. Her words came out staggered between sobs and hyperventilating.

  “Don’t talk like that. You’re going to be fine.”

  Bartholomew grabbed a blanket off the back of one of his office chairs. “Tabbi, wrap this around the wound and put as much pressure on it as you can. I need supplies.” He disappeared.

  Tabbi did as he instructed, her hands shaking.

  “Samantha and Seth—did they come back?” I asked.

  Tabbi nodded. “They ran to Giovanni as soon as they saw you weren’t here.”

  Kayla grabbed my wrist, pulling my attention back to her. Her eyes stared into mine, the silent words of affection passing from her mind to mine. Then her eyelids fluttered closed—whether from pain or blood loss, I didn’t know—and her grip slipped from my wrist.

  “No, no, no. Kayla, keep your eyes open. Look at me. You can’t go to sleep. Hey, look at me.” I shook her head gently.

  Her eyes opened.

  “That’s it. Keep your eyes open. Hey, look at me. I need you to fight. Stay awake.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but instead a single tear rolled down her cheek. I wiped it away with my thumb.

  “I know, I know. Please hang on just a few more minutes.” A lump formed in my throat, and I swallowed. Damn you, Daniel. Keep it together.

  A second later Bartholomew appeared with Trishna—the same witch who’d healed Tabbi—in one hand and an IV stand in the other. A bag of O Negative blood hung on the stand. Bartholomew dropped the witch’s hand and leaned over Kayla to stick an IV needle in her arm. He attached one end of a rubber cord to the needle and the other to the blood bag. Then he unclipped the bag and let the blood flow. Red liquid ran through the tube and into her body.

  “Did you rob a hospital?” Tabbi asked.

  “They won’t miss these,” he replied. “Tabbi, switch spots with Trishna. She can save Kayla.”

  Trishna slipped under Kayla’s ankle. She spoke with a strong, Indian accent. “I can’t replace the blood she lost, but I can heal her. This will hurt, so you must keep a firm grasp on her. Do not permit her to fight me.”

  I nodded and moved my hand from Kayla’s cheek to her arm, prepared to hold her still while Trishna did her work. She plucked a smooth, white stone out of a leather bag and held it in both hands over Kayla’s ankle. She closed her eyes and spoke Latin.

  “Spirituum, te invoco. Cinis est pulvis ex ossibus, da mihi potestatem curandi saxo.”

  Th
e creamy swirls in the rock spun, and the stone glowed. Trishna kept her eyes shut and repeated her spell. The skin on Kayla’s ankle began to close.

  Kayla whimpered, and then the whimpers turned into groans. The muscles in her arms tightened, and her hands clenched into fists. With my injured arm still under her shoulders and my good hand gripping her arm, I pinned her against my body.

  As the skin around her ankle tightened further, her groans turned into cries. She gripped my arm and dug her nails into my skin. “Daniel, please. Let me go. Make it stop!”

  “I will soon. Hang in there.” My eyes burned as her screams intensified and she fought against my grasp. Since my youngest sister died in 1869, I hadn’t shed a tear. There would be no crying now. Kayla needed me to be strong.

  After what felt like hours, her cries softened and her struggles weakened, and Kayla’s eyes closed, her face relaxing. Trishna wiped her brow, pushing loose strands of black hair from her forehead, and answered my question before I could ask.

  “She’s asleep. Her ankle is healed. She may be tired when she wakes, but there should be no pain when she stands.”

  Loosening my grip on Kayla, I touched her cheek. “Thank you,” I replied to Trishna.

  “The wound she carried was laced with dark magic. You’re lucky I got here in time. How did you say she got injured?” Trishna asked.

  “A Nightmare. A swarm of them attacked. I thought they came for us Protectors, but then one attacked her while she was fully conscious.”

  Bartholomew’s gaping mouth confirmed I wasn’t the only one who’d never heard of such a thing.

  “Like someone was controlling them?” Trishna asked.

  My eyes tightened. “Actually, yeah. I’d had the same thought.”

  Trishna sighed. “Then it’s as I feared. A warlock is behind this. Just like last time.”

  laid Kayla on the sofa and covered her with a clean blanket while Bartholomew ran around his study like a hamster in its wheel. Tabbi and Trishna stood back and watched as he took book after book off his shelves.

  Seth and Samantha burst through the large, oak double doors of the study, both of them spotted from head to toe in black blood, and their faces lined with fear. Samantha’s eyes caught mine and softened, then Seth noticed Kayla lying on the sofa, the IV still hooked up to her arm.

  “Please tell me she’s okay,” he said.

  I nodded, though I was sure the emotional damage was far from healed.

  “Where’s Giovanni?” Bartholomew asked, continuing to rummage through his books.

  “Damage control,” Samantha replied. “They’re trying to stage the house like Kayla ran away so her disappearance doesn’t end up on the six o’clock news.”

  “Ah, here it is,” Bartholomew said.

  We approached his desk to see what had him running around like a headless chicken. He slammed a thick, black book on his desk and flipped through pages until he stopped on the one he wanted. “Only once in history has a warlock been able to harness the Nightmares. He used them like attack dogs and destroyed multiple villages in Wales.”

  Samantha, Seth and I moved closer to peer over his shoulder.

  “No way. I thought that story was a myth,” Seth said.

  Bartholomew shook his head and read from the book. “‘In the fourteen hundreds, a warlock by the name of Tamesis attempted to harness demons to attack humans in an effort to destroy the human race. But instead of demons, his powers latched onto the Nightmares. He thought he had failed—until he discovered what Nightmares could do. At least four villages suffered from insanity and began killing each other, and when Tamesis realized the Nightmares could also physically harm humans, complete towns were destroyed within days.’”

  “But why would he turn on his own kind? I mean, witches and warlocks are human, right?” Tabbi asked.

  Trishna shook her head. “Not exactly. The Magus, as you call us, were created when a human was tricked by a demon into producing a living heir. Since then, whenever a witch or warlock procreates with a human, their child is also Magus. Half demon, half human. That’s why black magic is easier for us to tap into, though many of us choose light.”

  “And Tamesis was as dark as they come,” Bartholomew added.

  “So then what happened? We know he didn’t succeed in destroying Wales,” I said.

  “We interceded,” Bartholomew replied. “By Law, Protectors cannot kill what isn’t already dead, but we can kill the Nightmares. And since humans cannot see Nightmares and couldn’t protect themselves, the Angels sent us into battle. We wiped out his entire army, and Tamesis fled.”

  I turned to Trishna. “So you think this Tamesis guy is still alive?”

  “Someone claimed to have seen him ten years ago in Philadelphia. If he was powerful enough to have controlled these Nightmares, he may have found a way to sustain his life.”

  “And you did nothing?” Samantha asked. “I would’ve hunted him down.”

  Trishna glared at her through thick, black eyelashes. “And what do you think would happen if the Magus turned against one another? It would end badly, not just for us, but for thousands. Destruction everywhere.”

  “So, why Kayla?” Seth asked. “The Nightmares hovered around her house for at least ten minutes before they attacked. If a warlock is controlling them, what does he want with her?”

  We stood silent, staring at each other until finally Bartholomew raised a finger. “Not just Kayla.” He searched through his books again. “Trishna, you say Tamesis was supposedly spotted ten years ago?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  He picked two very fat, white books. 2000—2010 was written on one cover. On the other: 2011—. “Because that’s when the numbers started to rise.” He dropped them on the desk and flipped through the one marked 2011—.

  “These are logs of all the times humans received more than three visits from Nightmares in a single night, usually appearing just one at a time. But starting in two-thousand-three, the pattern shifted. Daniel, when you told me that Kayla was receiving visits from five at a time, I went back and looked at the records. In this past year, there are three others who have been visited by five or more Nightmares simultaneously and more than once.”

  My stomach churned. “Well, then the question still stands. Why is he targeting these four?”

  Bartholomew looked up from his book and frowned. “That I don’t know.”

  I ground my teeth. We needed answers soon before more people got hurt. And when Kayla woke, I wanted more to go on than “we don’t know.” Then Bartholomew’s comment came back to me about “normal” humans.

  “The other three—are they like her?” I asked.

  Bartholomew squinted. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Kayla burned her attacker alive with her own hands. I was in her head. I felt it.”

  Trishna held up a hand. “Wait, you mean she’s a witch?”

  I’d never thought about the possibility, but now that Trishna mentioned it… I ran my hand down my face. “Maybe… yeah, I think so.”

  Both Samantha and Seth stiffened. Bartholomew looked down at his book.

  Trishna raised her hands. “This changes things. Bartholomew, I must apologize, but I have to be going. If the warlock is going after his own kind, then we are all in extreme danger. I will learn what I can, but you must be prepared.”

  “For what?” Samantha asked.

  Trishna frowned and disappeared without saying another word.

  Tabbi worked on readying a room for Kayla in the mansion while Seth, Samantha, Bartholomew and I relayed to Giovanni everything we’d learned. He was none too happy about housing a witch, but he couldn’t deny that something evil was stirring in the otherworld. If her protection meant throwing a wrench into the warlock’s plans, then it needed to be done. In the meantime, he would call on the Catchers overseeing the care of the other three humans receiving over five Nightmares a night to determine if they, too, possessed magic.

  After carrying Kayla to
the room Tabbi prepared, I laid her on the white-and-lavender, flowered comforter of the bed positioned in the far corner of the room.

  She woke two hours later. “Daniel?”

  I jumped out of an oversized armchair and set down my book. Sitting next to her on the bed, I took her hand in mine. “Hey, how do you feel?”

  “Like I got hit by a truck. What happened? My ankle—”

  “Is fine.” I squeezed her hand. “You lost a lot of blood, but Bartholomew found someone to heal you. You’ll be fine.”

  “Like that warlock who was after you?”

  “Not all witches are bad.” Why do I feel like I’m saying that for my own benefit?

  Kayla sat up and looked around at the pale yellow walls and the white bookshelf on the other side of the window from the bed. Next to it was a matching, white desk and the white, plush armchair I’d read in. A large, white armoire had been placed next to the entrance to her bathroom, and an oversized easel stood across from the window.

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re in Rome. Tabbi fixed up a room to make you feel a little more at home.”

  “Rome?”

  I nodded. “This is where the Protectors, like me, live. You’re safe here.”

  She frowned. “How long will we be here?”

  I stared at her, unsure how to tell her what I’d learned from Trishna and Bartholomew. She’d already been through so much, seen too much of the supernatural world. Now wasn’t the time for big revelations. She needed to feel at ease, safe.

  “I’m sorry, Kayla. But, until we figure out why you were targeted last night, it’s best we keep you here under our protection.”

  “Targeted? You mean that freaking Nightmare was set on me?”

  I nodded. “When that warlock tried to kill me in Paris, we think his ultimate target was you. And when he failed to get you that night… well, we think that’s why he sent those Nightmares after you.”